Send to a friend

Saint Jerome in his Study Albrecht Dürer

Description

Saint Jerome sits writing at his desk, surrounded by a series of objects including, most noticeably, an hourglass and his cardinal's hat on the wall behind him, a huge gourd hanging from the ceiling, and a skull on the window-sill. A small dog and the saint's lion lie on the floor in the foreground.

Ruskin first catalogued the print in the first catalogue of the Educational Series (1871), where it was no. 109, included in Case VII, "Elementary Zoology. Lions. - Birds. - Serpents". As it was set amongst several drawings of lions, this was evidently due to the lion which fills much of the foreground. It remained in the same position in the second catalogue of the Educational Series (1874), although Ruskin's renumbering of the series meant that its number had changed to 159.

In the preface to "The Eagle's Nest", Ruskin mentioned the "Saint Jerome" as one of the few plates by Dürer (along with the "Melencolia"; "Saint Eustace"; and "Knight, Death and the Devil", all of which are in the collection) where the depiction of clothed figures meant that Dürer's depiction of the figure was not 'polluted and paralyzed by the study of anatomy' (The Eagle's Nest, preface = XXII.122).

Details

In the print:
on a plaque on the floor, lower right: 1514 | AD [The 'AD' in Dürer's characteristic monogram]

On the mount, recto, all in graphite, all recent:
bottom centre: (3)
bottom left corner: 42.
bottom left, just below corner of print: B. 60
bottom right corner, an indistinct inscription has been struck through with a horizontal line